DUSHANBE, November 27, 2008, Asia-Plus — The Ministry of Defense offers amendments to the country’s law on military.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, a high-ranking official with a MoD said that the amendments concerned, first all, articles on deferment of military service and exemption from it.
“This initiative results from the fact that every year we face the same problem: we fail to call up some 85 percent of young men of conscription age for military service,” the official said, noting that some of young people of conscription age are granted deferment or exempted from military service, while many conscript-age young men seek migrant work outside to avoid military service.
“Besides, we propose to reduce the term of military service from two to 1.5 years,” he said
According to him, time has come to make proposals on improvement of organization of the conscription campaign in the country. “The amendments have been sent for consideration and coordination to the relevant ministries and organizations,” the official said, noting the present law on military service does not meet realities of the times.
According to figures provided by the State Committee for Statistics, there are more than 600,000 young men aged 18 to 27 in Tajikistan. “Actually, only 350,000-400,000 of them have been registered with the military registration and enlistment offices,” said the MoD official, “200,000 of them are currently serving or have already finished military service, while many others have been granted deferment or exempted from military. As a result, only 60,000 conscript-age young men are officially considered as conscription resources and some 8,000 young men are called for military service during conscription campaign.”
Under the military service law, the draft affects able-bodied male citizens in the age bracket of 18 years old to 27 years old, who are not members of the armed forces reserve. The conscription campaign is carried out in Tajikistan twice a year – in the spring and in the autumn. The spring conscription is carried out from April through may and the autumn conscription campaign is carried out from October through November.
